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"I made it clear to the Republican members of the supercommittee that I expect there will be an outcome, that there has to be an outcome," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a Washington forum on Thursday. "The sequester that was built behind this is ugly, and it was meant to be ugly so that no one would go there. I don't underestimate how hard it's going to be to come to an agreement by the so-called supercommittee, but we have to get to one."

The across-the-board sequester, however, wouldn't take effect until the beginning of 2013, which is already fueling speculation that Congress would simply revisit the issue after the elections next year.